The event "Hacker Games: Vilnius" at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU), demanded sleepless nights, endless creativity and successful cooperation from the participants. This was the Start-up workshop, to which they invited designers, developers, managers, marketing and other specialists, as well as people, interested in innovations and start-ups. This time the participants showed quick reaction to the recent events: one of the hackathon projects was the computer game on the notorious fugitive Igor Molotkov with an automatic weapon AK-74.
Free event, with one-hundred-thirty participants, started on Friday, the participants made up twenty-eight teams and presented their ideas and initial work. For creating their product or prototype, the contestants had time only until Sunday, so they were working day and night. Fifteen teams, ready to work all night, developed various computer games, the remaining (except for one person, developing technical equipment) competed in business solutions and software category. They elected two first-place winners from each category.
"The event ‘‘Hacker Games: Vilnius‘‘ showed perfectly well, how, by uniting their forces and connecting their competences, specialists of different areas can develop a product which otherwise would be impossible to develop. Thus, cooperation is one of the most important values that we consider to be the priority in our University, too"- said Jelena Stankevičienė, the Dean of the Faculty of Business Management at VGTU and a member of the jury of this event.
Perhaps, the funniest idea of the event belonged to the team, called "Igor," which for the entire weekend was developing the game about the notorious Lithuanian fugitive I. Molotkov, who was walking in the city, frightening people and using public transport. The Commission recommended the developers to place the game on the Internet as quickly as possible, in order to earn possibly more than one thousand euros within a few days.
Not only the "Hacker Games: Vilnius‘‘ participants‘ creativity surprised us, but also their age – the team "Rad Games" which developed an adventure game, consisted of two boys aged 14 and one boy – 11. The kids said they participated in the hackathon because they wanted to gain valuable experience in developing games.
Although all participants joined hackathon teams, one team consisted of only one man. 29-year old Dmitrij studied political science, but for the last three years, he has been designing computer games. The person said that such events had always inspired him to develop new things – and this time, his goal was to understand what product progress from scratch he could make in forty-eight hours. It turned out, it was possible to do a lot: Dmitrij developed a block clearing game and won the first place in the category of games, receiving special ‘‘Topo Centras“ prizes. The team, which developed the multiplayer game "KoopDungeon“, also won the first place.
The first place in the category of business solutions and software went to the team "eVRy Launcher’’, for the virtual reality application organizer – they received JSC "Koralis "prize. While ‘‘Transfer Go“ prize went to the team, which developed platform, enabling business to manage their Twitter accounts easier.
All weekend mentors of different areas, who advised the teams and helped to improve their products and business plans, participated in "Hacker Games". This hackathon cycle was organised by public institution "Versli Lietuva“ and ‘‘Start-up Lithuania‘‘ community, and this year VGTU joined the partners.
